From Black Muslim to Bilalian: The Evolution of a Movement

This study, based on interviews, analyzes the changes that have occurred in the evolution of the Black Muslim movement to Sunni orthodoxy, the American Muslim Mission led by Mujeddid Wallace Deen Muhammad. It also examines the rise and growth of a countermovement, the resurrected Nation of Islam, led by Minister Louis Farrakhan. A Weberian framework is employed to understand the schism in the movement in relation to socio-economic changes that have occurred during the past 50 years. The argument is that the Black Muslim work ethic and morality have produced the unintended consequence of changing a predominantly lower-class movement into a middle-class one. This change in class status produced favorable conditions for changes in ideology. A case is made for a growing class split between Wallace's predominantly middle-class American Muslim movment and Farrakhan's lower-class Nation of Islam.